Spiritual direction at Sydney's Good Shepherd Seminary

Spiritual direction at Sydney's Good Shepherd Seminary

Fr Paul Glynn SM

AD2000 asked Fr Paul Glynn SM, who has just finished
several years as spiritual director to Sydney's Good Shepherd
seminary, for some reflections on what is needed in the life of a
seminarian and a priest today. Father Glynn is the author of
several well-received books reviewed in AD2000.

I was giving talks at the beautiful retreat centre called
"God's Farm" which is situated in light bushland
about 40 minutes from Margaret River, WA. I had just come in from
admiring the sky-blue splendid Fairy Wrens and the bewitching WA
wildflowers, some of the latter growing, amazingly, out of sheer
sand.

A phone call came, jarring the silence and clouding my sunny
mood. Bishop Julian Porteous, Rector of the Good Shepherd
Diocesan Seminary, Sydney, said they were losing their Spiritual
Director. Would I take on the task for the next two years?

I told him I had no training whatsoever for such high-octane
flying. He said, "Look, the bottom line is l want you to
help the seminarians pray, and you can do that, I know." It
is hard to refuse a direct request from a bishop, so I said a
none-too-confident Yes.

Imitate Jesus

I remember a meeting we missionary priests had in Japan in the
1970s. We had been stunned by the number of priests worldwide who
were leaving the priesthood. Why is it? Will I be tempted to go,
too? With absolutely no intention of judging the leavers, we
asked what could be for us the danger signs of a vocation
loosening its grip on one's soul?

We only came up with one conclusion: If you want to survive as
a priest, above all in our materially rich era, when ordinary
citizens can live as comfortably and even as luxuriously as only
kings and the very wealthy could live a century ago, you must
imitate the Jesus of the Gospels, and commit yourself to
quality-time daily prayer.

If I come to say that my parishioners' demands make me too
busy to take regular time out for prayer, I am right. I am too
busy. The Japanese ideograph for "busy" is a
spiritual karate chop, a combination of the ideographs for
"heart" and "destroy."

I had several months to prepare for my new role in the
seminary. Among other things I asked a number of lay people: What
do you see as really important in a seminarian's training for the
priesthood ? What do you most hope to see when he is a priest
working in your parish?

I can sum up their unhesitating answers in two sentences.
"Our priests don't have to be the top intellectuals on the
block, nor wizards at organising, raising money, etc. What we
want above all is a holy priest, at home with God, who can help
us to pray and become closer to God."

I was struck by the consistency and simplicity of their
replies. They were giving the same bottom line that Bishop
Porteous gave.

I received essentially the same response from several priest
friends I questioned. One of them added something, and insisted
it is part of a healthy prayer life. He remembered vividly their
seminary spiritual director saying this: "Some days a
priest in a parish can get so run off his feet by a host of
parishioners' legitimate needs that there is hardly any time for
praying alone. In that case, make the last thing to go, your
spiritual reading, some time reading a book that speaks to your
heart, and not just to your head, about the love of God. That
keeps your prayer from going stale and flat."

There is no doubt about it. If a priest is trying to imitate
his Master, "often going to deserted places to pray,"
and taking his advice to "go into your room and shut the
door to pray ... because your Father is there and knows what you
need," his daily Mass does become the "summit and
source" of his Christian life that Vatican II said it
should be. The Mass comes alive and gives a priest energy and joy
in his tasks.

In one Holy Thursday message to priests, John Paul II gave
them a simple and powerful piece of advice. He wrote that as they
proclaim in Mass, "This is my Body given up (to death) for
you, This is my Blood poured out for you", let them offer
their very own body and blood in that proclamation.

That is the way to the positive and peaceful acceptance of
each day, with its physical and at times mental tiredness and
frustrations, its sometimes impossible expectations and demands
made by parishioners, its dark moments that are part of
everyone's life, and everything else that comes.

The Mass then is really a "sacrifice," which word
comes from two Latin words meaning "make holy." With
that daily offering of himself, a priest becomes truly content to
be a "servant" to his parishioners, just as the
Master was content to be our servant, even washing the disciples'
feet.

Lay people

If there is one thing that Vatican II stressed for lay folk,
it is the "priesthood" of all the People of God, of
all the baptised. This is no new teaching, but it had been
forgotten by many. You find it expressly stated in Exodus 19:6,
Isaiah 61:6,1 Peter 2:5-10, and in three places in the final book
of the Bible, Revelation 1:6, 5:10 and 20:6.

So a message for lay people also flows from Pope John Paul's
message to ordained priests. Let them, too, as they attend Mass
in the pews, say in their hearts, when they hear those tremendous
words at the consecration of the bread and wine: "I too
join with you, Jesus, and willingly offer my body, my blood, my
perspiration, my responsibilities, my energies, my sufferings, my
love, hopes, my fears - all that I am and all that I have, I
offer all this with you, Jesus, to the Father" so that His
Kingdom may become a reality in my daily life, in my home, in my
parish, and eventually in the whole cosmos.